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Who needs London when you can chill at the beautiful Mitchelton Winery?

So I had a huffy moment yesterday about Fletch FORGETTING to tell me that he met a long-held major CRUSH of mine – MR BIG – at the British TV Awards. Not even a phone call or an autograph, which would have been appreciated given I wasn’t even able to be there…

Never mind, I said, I can make my own fun and promptly got on a mini-bus yesterday with a bunch of mates and headed up to the stunning Mitchelton Winery, about an hour and a half’s drive up northern Victoria.

Mitchelton Winery near Nagambie

First stop – forget a grand tour – we headed straight to the elegant restaurant with a cosy open fireplace to get lunch and the wine tasting underway pronto.

Mitchelton winery grounds

It started off a fairly sedate affair. Here’s the group of us BEFORE the wine came out…

Party group before the wine tasting…

At the front and to the left is Mitchelton’s Managing Director, Andrew Ryan, who was definitely the host with the most-est. The feast with accompanying wines to follow was truly outstanding… It’s easy to see why this is such a popular wedding venue.

Then Mitchelton’s wine expert John Beresford gave us the rundown on the various wines we’d be sampling and the fun began.

Nick samples the riesling…

Alex, Dean, Juliana, Jack and Sam all listened attentively to the wine rundown

Then the famous Mitchelton Print Shiraz was brought to the table and it was time to see if our taste buds were clever enough to tell the difference between a 2009 or a 1999 vintage. Easy – they were both damn fine drops. Well, I guess that’s why everyone was smiling

Juliana and Jack

Mitch, Kate and Andrew

The view from the restaurant, over the grand Murray River, was mighty impressive so after lunch, we took a stroll to take in the sights.

View from the restaurant

A platform area, usually popular with wedding parties, seemed the best spot for a group photo…

At which point, looking at our group, it suddenly dawned on me what a bloody fine looking bunch of people we’d put together. I mean, really, with big strong Aussie men like these, who needs Mr Big???

Who needs Mr Big?

After all that exercise, it was time for a very SPECIAL tasting session – this time down in the depths of the Mitchelton cellars.

A special tasting in the cellar – Nick, Jack, John and Sam

Raiding the tokay barrels…

The most popular drop from the whole day proved to be a rare Tokay from these barrels – liquid gold… but at 20% alcohol, a tad lethal…

Focusing the camera was a challenge…

As a result, my subsequent photos lost a bit of clarity…

Plenty of goodies to buy in the Gift Shop…

A sensible person suggested it was time to get going, so we did the usual exit – through the Gift Store! Wow – a treasure trove of gourmet treats and fabulous wine…

The final treat before we stumbled into the mini-bus for a rowdy drive home (via McDonalds) was the view from the Michelton Tower at dusk. Truly superb. A fitting end to a beautiful day. I mean, really, who needs Mr Big???